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Avoiding another Big Financial Crisis
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Avoiding another Big Financial Crisis


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Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Analytical
  • Eye Opening
  • Overview

Recommendation

After the Great Recession, US policy makers made significant changes to the financial system’s regulatory architecture. The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010 set in place an array of complex new guidelines, rules and systems designed to engineer a less risk-oriented banking and financial infrastructure. This authoritative commentary from Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Brookings director David Wessel notes that while some of these policies have proven their efficacy, others have fallen short of their goals. getAbstract recommends this incisive examination of the successes, failures and unknowns of the postcrisis regulatory reboot to financial professionals and investors.

Summary

The aftermath of the Great Recession left gaping wounds in the US economy: Nine million individuals found themselves out of work, five million Americans lost their homes and $13 trillion in household wealth evaporated. The financial crisis exposed cracks and fragmentation in the US regulatory system, exacerbating a downturn that resounded across the globe. In response, policy makers brought landmark changes to the US financial ecosystem. Central to this new dynamic was the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010. The law enacts multiple structural...

About the Author

David Wessel is director of the Brookings Institution’s Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy.